October #2
‘I’ve missed you,’ I said, instinctively bringing my knees towards my chest and wrapping my arms tight around them, steeling myself for him to say he felt differently.
‘I’ve missed you too,’ he replied. He was down to his boxers now, peeling back the duvet cover and climbing into bed to join me.
‘But how are you here? Why are you here?’
‘Not now, later.’ He leant towards me and kissed me, properly this time, with a sense of urgency.
I unwrapped my arms from around my shins and, when I did, he parted my knees and moved in between them.
He brushed the backs of his fingers over my cheek, down my neck, across my chest. My own fingers combed through his hair, which felt soft, like he’d washed it that morning.
His cheeks were thick with stubble, even though it was only October and he didn’t normally start growing a beard until December.
He kissed me harder and pressed his body against mine.
I heard myself make a noise that sounded like pleasure as I reached for the headboard and he slipped off my knickers.
I hadn’t been with anyone like Noah before.
I’d had boyfriends, but he was different – more a man at a time when I, in my mid-twenties, still thought of myself as a girl.
He knew what he wanted in life. And once a decision had been made, there was no going back on it.
We’d been dating for just a few months when he told me he was all in.
I remember the feeling that spread through me at that moment, a comforting warmth, the kind you get when you wrap yourself in a towel that’s spent the night on a heated rail.
It was the same familiar comfort I experienced whenever I arrived home in Norfolk after an extended period away.
That night, after we had sex, we lay next to one another, my cheek on his chest, our legs interlinked.
I listened as his heartbeat gradually slowed down and tried to think of nothing but the sensation of his fingertips tracing my bare skin.
I noticed the weekend bag of clothes beside the bed and thought momentarily of his suitcase, which he must have left downstairs.
When my mind started to race, I screwed my eyes shut and pressed my ear tighter against his chest, the volume of his heartbeat rising.
He was waiting for me to say something, I was sure of it. After all, he’d made his feelings clear. Then, shifting slightly so he could see my face, and I his, he repeated the same words he’d said all those years before : ‘I’m all in, Cathy.’
I held on tight around his waist and squeezed my legs together with his.
‘I’ve been worrying about you, with everything going on with your mum.
I want you to know that I’m here for you.
I want to work through this.’ He noticed my tears before I did, and he sat up and lifted my chin with his fingers, trying to read me like my mother did the plants in her garden that didn’t blossom when they should.
‘You have to help me here, honey,’ he said, his eyes flicking left and right.
‘I can’t tell if these are happy or sad tears. ’
‘Both?’ I offered. ‘There’s just such a lot to consider, such a lot going on.’
‘We can get through it, together. OK?’
I couldn’t think of an adequate answer, so I simply repeated the same two letters back to him.
Noah’s plane had landed on a Thursday and our wedding anniversary was that Saturday, Theo’s birthday.
The night before, when I told him we’d have to wait and celebrate our anniversary in the evening, he told me he understood and that he was looking forward to the little man’s party.
I must have raised an eyebrow because he explained that we hadn’t spent time together with Anna and Caleb for a while.
He also told me, with a glint in his eye, that our evening plans had been taken care of.
Just in case anyone was in doubt about the address, two buttercup-coloured balloons were tied to the front door, bobbing gently in the breeze.
We climbed the stone steps and rang the buzzer, then waited, listening to the faint sound of squeals, chatter and music, muffled for the moment.
Noah had taken my hand in his and was giving it a kiss when the door swung open.
‘Guys, you made it, so good to see you!’ Caleb was wearing a bright shirt and a smile that looked too tight, like it might be pinching.
I wondered whether it had been brought on by the presence of more than a dozen small children, or whether he’d slipped it on specially for us – no doubt Anna had filled him in on our recent comings and goings.
‘Good to see you, too,’ said Noah, smiling a more natural smile, shaking Caleb’s hand and patting him on the arm. ‘It’s been a while, buddy.’
‘Caleb, hi,’ I said, belatedly kicking into gear myself and leaning forward to give and receive a couple of kisses.
‘Well, come on in – we’re all in here.’ His eyes widened at the word ‘all’, which confirmed that it was the children who’d put him on edge and not us.
We removed our coats and followed him into the living room, which was strewn with more balloons, orange as well as yellow.
Paper chains that looked too neat to be handmade had been tacked onto the walls alongside Caleb and Anna’s framed prints and photos, and there was a ball pit in the centre of the room, the coffee table relegated to a spot beneath the bay window.
Above the fireplace, a banner said happy birthday in big bubble letters.
‘Theo,’ called Caleb, ‘are you going to come and say hello to your godmother?’
Understandably, Theo was preoccupied, perched at the top of the slide that descended into the ball pit, with a tumbling queue of toddlers forming behind him.
‘Come on, Theo, come down.’
‘Don’t worry,’ I said, laughing at Caleb’s attempt to coax him away from the fun and towards the grown-ups.
‘I’ll say hello later.’ I added his present to the mounting pile by the door then scanned the room for familiar faces.
It was lined with seated and standing mothers and fathers, chatting amongst themselves, instinctively glancing in the direction of their offspring every now and then.
‘What can I get you two to drink?’ asked Caleb, clapping his hands together, eager no doubt to escape to the kitchen. ‘We’ve got wine, beer, champagne …’
‘I’ll take an IPA if you have one,’ said Noah.
‘Coming right up. Cathy?’
‘White wine, please,’ I said, still scanning. I recognised Anna’s sister, who looked just like her, the same angular face and chestnut hair, only a few years older.
As Caleb went in search of drinks, I glanced up at Noah, expecting to catch a strained look on his own face. I was ready to apologise for subjecting him to so many children in such a small space, relatively speaking, when he turned to me and said he was glad we’d come.
‘Me too!’
We spun around in sync and found Anna standing behind us, a blue-and-white plate of what she called ‘adult nibbles’ resting on an upturned palm.
The coffee table, I’d noticed, typically topped with books and magazines, was stocked with more kiddie options : cubes of cheese, cherry tomatoes, those cold cocktail sausages with the wrinkly skin, crustless sandwiches cut into triangles, peeled carrot sticks, seedless grapes.
I glanced in its direction and caught a small person with corkscrew curls dunking his entire fist into the bowl of Hula Hoops, which promptly went flying.
‘Anna, hi.’ I gave her a hug, careful not to tip the smoked-salmon blinis straight off the plate and onto the floor. ‘Great party,’ I added.
She cocked her head.
‘No, really, I mean it!’
‘Well, that’s very kind of you to say,’ she said. ‘But don’t worry, we have plenty of booze, and the plan is that the ball pit wears everyone out and then there’s a mass nap.’
‘My kind of birthday,’ said Noah, accepting his bottle of beer from Caleb, who’d returned from his safe haven at the other end of the house, and passing me my wine.
‘Have you seen Maz?’ asked Anna, looking at me. ‘I told her you were coming.’
‘Yes,’ I said, waving at her sister, who this time saw me too and waved back. ‘Though I haven’t had a chance to say hello yet.’
‘Well, come on, let’s leave these two to it.’ She linked my arm in hers and carefully, again not to drop the nibbles, we shuffled around the perimeter of the pit, tapping runaway plastic balls aside with our toes.
I glanced over my shoulder and watched as Noah crouched down to talk to the little boy with the curly hair, who was wiggling Hula Hoops at him on his fingers.
‘Maz, you remember Cathy?’
‘Of course, hi!’ As soon as she started speaking, she looked even more like Anna. They had matching expressions, the same habit of scrunching their noses and tilting their heads back as they laughed. ‘How are you?’ she asked, taking a sip of her champagne.
‘I’m good, thank you,’ I replied, glancing again at Noah and the boy, who was transferring Hula Hoops from his fingers to the tips of my husband’s, or trying to. I smiled, shook my head, and brought my focus back to Maz. ‘Happy to be here celebrating Theo’s birthday.’
‘Well, aren’t we all!’ She nudged Anna with her elbow as she added, ‘And it won’t be all that long until the next one comes along.’
My breath caught, but only briefly, not like before. I turned to Anna, who was staring at me with an open mouth. I lowered my voice to a whisper and asked, ‘Are you pregnant?’
She handed the plate to Maz, who was belatedly holding a hand to her own open mouth, and pulled me back around the pit and out of the room.
As we passed Noah, who was still crouched down, chatting with his new friend, he looked up at me and asked, ‘Everything OK?’
I smiled and nodded.